“I doubt it, but let’s see.” Meredith pulled the rocking chair away, saying, “Grab me a hanger.”
Bonnie grabbed one from the closet and grabbed herself one of Elena’s tops to put on at the same time. It was too big, since it was Meredith’s top given to Elena, but at least it was warm.
Meredith was using the hooked end of the wire hanger on all sides of the floorboard that looked most promising. Just as she managed to pry it up, there was a knock at the open door. They both jumped.
“It’s only me,” said the voice of Mrs. Flowers from behind a large duffel bag and a tray of bandages, mugs, sandwiches, and strong-smelling cheesecloth bags like the ones she’d used on Matt’s arm.
Bonnie and Meredith exchanged a glance and then Meredith said, “Come in and let us help you.” Bonnie was already taking the tray, and Mrs. Flowers was dumping the duffel bag on the floor. Meredith continued prying the board up.
“Food!” Bonnie said gratefully.
“Yes, turkey-and-tomato sandwiches. Help yourselves. I’m sorry I was away so long, but you can’t hurry the poultice for swellings,” Mrs. Flowers said. “I remember, long ago, my younger brother always said — oh, my goodness gracious!” She was staring at the place where the floorboard had been. A good-sized hollow was filled with hundred-dollar bills, neatly wrapped in packets with bank-bands still around them.
“Wow,” Bonnie said. “I never saw so much money!”
“Yes.” Mrs. Flowers turned and began distributing cups of cocoa and sandwiches. Bonnie bit into a sandwich hungrily. “People used to simply put things behind the loose brick in the fireplace. But I can see that the young man needed more space.”
“Thank you for the cocoa and sandwiches,” Meredith said after a few minutes spent wolfing them down while working on the computer at the same time. “But if you want to treat us for bruises and things — well, I’m afraid we just can’t wait.”
“Oh, come.” Mrs. Flowers took a small compress that smelled to Bonnie like tea and pressed it to Meredith’s nose. “This will take the swelling down in minutes. And you, Bonnie — sniff out the one that’s for that bump on your forehead.”
Once again Meredith’s and Bonnie’s eyes met. Bonnie said, “Well, if it’s only a few minutes — I don’t know what we’re doing next anyway.” She looked the poultices over and picked a round one that smelled of flowers and musk to put on her forehead.
“Exactly right,” Mrs. Flowers said without turning around to look. “And of course, the long thin one is for Meredith’s ankle.”
Meredith drank the last of her cocoa, then reached down to gingerly touch one of the red marks. “That’s okay—” she began, when Mrs. Flowers interrupted.
“You’re going to need that ankle at full capacity when we go out.”
“‘When we go out’?” Meredith stared at her.
“Into the Old Wood,” Mrs. Flowers clarified. “To find your friends.”
Meredith looked horrified. “If Elena and Matt are in the Old Wood, then I agree: we have to go look for them. But you can’t go, Mrs. Flowers! And we don’t know where they are, anyway.”
Mrs. Flowers drank from the cup of cocoa in her hand, looking thoughtfully at the one window that wasn’t shuttered. For a moment Meredith thought she hadn’t heard or didn’t mean to answer. Then she said, slowly, “I daresay you all think I’m just a batty old woman who’s never around when there’s trouble at hand.”
“We would never think that,” Bonnie said staunchly, but thinking that they’d found out more about Mrs. Flowers in the last two days than in the entire nine months since Stefan had moved in here. Before that, all she’d ever heard were ghost stories or rumors about the crazy old lady in the boardinghouse. She’d been hearing them since she could remember.
Mrs. Flowers smiled. “It’s not easy having the Power and never being believed when you use it. And then, I’ve lived for so long — and people don’t like that. It worries them. They start to make up ghost stories or rumors—” Bonnie felt her eyes go round. Mrs. Flowers just smiled again and nodded gently. “It’s been a real pleasure having a polite young man in the house,” she said, taking the long poultice from the tray and wrapping it around Meredith’s ankle. “Of course, I had to get over my prejudices. Dear Mama always said that if I kept the place, I might have to take in boarders, and to be sure not to take in foreigners. And then of course, the young man is a vampire as well —” Bonnie almost sprayed cocoa across the room. She choked, then went into a spasm of coughing. Meredith had her no-expression expression on.
“—but after a while I got to understand him better and to sympathize with his problems,” Mrs. Flowers continued, ignoring Bonnie’s attack of coughing. “And now, the blond girl is involved as well…poor young thing. I often speak to Mama”—still with the accent on the second syllable—“about it.”
“How old is your mother?” Meredith asked. Her tone was one of polite inquiry, but to Bonnie’s experienced eyes her expression was one of slightly morbid fascination.
“Oh, she died back at the turn of the century.”
There was a pause, and then Meredith rallied.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “She must have lived a long—”
“I should have said, the turn of the previous century. Back in 1901, it was.”
This time it was Meredith who had the choking fit. But she was more quiet about it.
Mrs. Flowers’ gentle gaze had drifted back to them. “I was a medium in my day. On vaudeville, you know. So hard to achieve a trance in front of a roomful of people. But, yes, I really am a White Witch. I have the Power. And now, if you’ve finished your cocoa, I think it’s time we went into the Old Wood to find your friends. Even though it’s summertime, my dears, you’d both better dress warmly,” she added. “I have.”
No peck on the lips was going to satisfy Damon, Elena thought. On the other hand, Matt was going to need outright seduction before he would give in. Fortunately Elena had broken the Matt Honeycutt code long ago. And she planned to be remorseless in using what she had learned on his weakened, susceptible body.
But Matt could be far too stubborn for his own good. He allowed Elena to put her soft lips against his, he allowed her to put her arms around him. But when Elena tried to do some of the things he liked most — like running her nails down his spine, or touching her tongue tip lightly to his closed lips — he clamped his teeth shut. He wouldn’t put an arm around her.
Elena let go of him and sighed. Then she felt a crawling sensation between her shoulder blades, as if she were being watched but a hundred times stronger. She glanced back to see Damon standing at a distance with his Virginia pine rod, but she couldn’t find anything unusual. She glanced back once more — and had to cram a fist into her mouth.
Damon was there; right behind her; so close that you couldn’t have gotten two fingers between the front of her body and the front of his. She didn’t know why her arm hadn’t hit him. Her whirl actually trapped her in between two male bodies.
But how had he done it? There had been no time to travel the distance of the clearing from where Damon had been standing to one inch behind her in the second that she had glanced away. Nor had there been any sound as he’d walked across the pine needles toward them; like the Ferrari, he was just — there.
Elena swallowed the scream that was desperately trying to get out of her lungs, and tried to breathe. Her own body was rigid with fear. Matt was trembling slightly behind her. Damon was leaning in, and all she could smell was the sweetness of pine resin.
Something’s wrong with him. Something’s wrong.
“You know what,” Damon said, leaning forward even farther so that she had to lean backward against Matt, so that, even spooned against Matt’s shaking body, she was looking straight into the Ray-Bans from a distance of three inches. “That gets you a grade of a D minus.”
Now Elena was shaking as well as Matt. But she had to get a grip on herself, had to meet this aggression head-on. The more passive she and Matt were, the more time Damon had to think.
Elena’s mind was in feverish scheming mode. He may not be reading our minds, she thought, but he can certainly tell if we’re telling the truth or lying. That’s normal for a vampire who drinks human blood. What can we make of that? What can we do with it?
“That was a greeting kiss,” she said boldly. “It’s to identify the person that you’re meeting, so you’ll always
